Planarizing or polishing processes, such as chemical mechanical polishing (CMP), are essential processes in the manufacture of most advanced integrated circuits (ICs). In general, layers used in IC fabrication must be made extremely planar and of precise thicknesses in order to reliably pattern the various sub-micron sized features that commonly comprise modern semiconductor devices. CMP, a combination of chemical etching and mechanical abrasion processes, is one method of providing the planar surfaces required for such advanced IC manufacturing processes.
Such polishing processes can also include a conditioning step in which a pad conditioner is used to abrade the top surface of the polishing pad and remove by-products from the polishing process and/or open pores in the polishing pad to sustain a polishing rate. Pad conditioning is typically performed using an abrasive material mounted on a disk and applied to the polishing pad. In general, the pad conditioning process can either be performed in-situ (i.e., at the same time the wafer is being polished) or ex-situ (i.e., between processing of wafers).